Head of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Czech Republic, Metropolitan Ilarion, may face sanctions due to ties with the FSB - Denik N

The Czech government may impose sanctions on the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Czech Republic. According to Denik N, Andrej Babiš, leader of the Czech ANO party and winner of the parliamentary elections in the country, also reportedly agrees, UNN reports.

Details

The government of the Czech Republic wants to impose sanctions against the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Bishop Hilarion. The likely future Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) stated that he would agree to such a step, writes Denik N.

Metropolitan Hilarion (Grigory Alfeyev) previously headed the Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, and later worked in the administration of the Budapest-Hungarian Diocese. For several years, Hilarion has been implicated in accusations of sexual harassment of a 21-year-old man from a Russian-Japanese family who served as the metropolitan's cell attendant. Hilarion received Hungarian citizenship in September 2022, but in recent years was "exiled" by the Russian Orthodox Church to the Czech Republic, to Karlovy Vary. Hilarion has been working in Karlovy Vary for a year now.

Deník N writes about the discovery of Metropolitan Hilarion's connections with the Russian special service FSB.

It is because of these findings, Deník N writes, that the outgoing government of Petr Fiala (ODS) is considering including him in the list of internal sanctions. This was confirmed to Deník N by three well-informed sources.

Recall

Priest Andriy Strutsky from the Russian Orthodox Church in Dranda stated that a woman is part of a man and cannot exist without him. He also noted that Christianity is becoming "sick and terrible" because "single people raise bad men."

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